Economics

Basic pre-collapse economic text. Gives concrete examples, chapter by chapter illustration of terms and concepts with a Glossary, and Study Questions and a Summary of each Chapter.

Provides a Chapter on "the Economics of Health Care" which is as current today as in 2000, addressing the twin problems of Costs and Access [710]. Compares various "reforms", including cost containments and altered incentives [721 ff].

International and world trade are the focus of a chapter and many motifs of the book, noting that China was "emerging" as a major trader as it turned to the market system [98].

Does not refer disparagingly to "plutocrats" or "plantation economies", but does ventilate the fact that monopolists "tend" to destroy capitalism and the show more free market.

In discussing Government "antitrust policy and regulation", notes that in the late 1800s and early 1900s the Government observed that market forces in monopolized industries did not provide sufficient control to protect consumers, achieve fair competition, and achieve allocative efficiency. The Government instituted two alternative means of control to supplement market forces: Regulatory agencies, and Antritrust laws.

In discussing the "Laffer Curve", points out that most economists believe that the U.S. "is operating in the range of the Laffer Curve where tax rates and tax revenues move in the same, not opposite, directions". And in fact "the sizable increases in marginal tax rates imposed by the Federal government in 1993 have generated large increases in tax revenues. The resulting budget surpluses led the Bush administration to propose reductions in marginal tax rates in 2001." [320] show less